Friday, November 8, 2013

A portion of this summer and fall has been an emotionally
draining time for me for several reasons.My eyes have been opened and I have had some revelations that were
shocking but necessary.I thought by now
I would be wiser in the ways of the world and people, and thankfully to some
extent I am; but apparently in these weeks, I have agonizingly realized I have
so much more to learn.Especially how
to navigate tricky relationships and the base nature of peoples’ feelings,
flaws, and characteristics. Also, I
realized I need to learn that I need to better myself with regards to treating
others.I thought I was doing a pretty
good job, but there is room for improvement.

How are adulthood and relationships not more even-keel and more
of a utopia?Friends divide and conquer;
marriages fail because some people are selfish and inconsiderate; various other
general relationships collapse due to disputes and personality
disagreements.

Why don’t we say ‘I am sorry.I know I have hurt you and acted out badly
and made the wrong decisions.I
sincerely regret my negative comments and actions.I really am sorry.’?Why don’t we stop hurting each other and
instead try our best to make people we care about happy?I realize she is a fictional character, but
Leslie Knope on the NBC show from Parks and Rec does pretty damn fine with this
particular aspect in my opinion.Why do we constantly let ourselves be disappointed by others
short-comings, hypocrisies and lies?Do
we not want to accept the fact that some people just do not like us anymore?I know I have a hard time accepting a
person’s negative and hurtful view of me because I like being liked by others,
especially when I like them in return.And when you finally realize/accept the fact that someone thinks less of
you, it is feels as if you have taken the blow of a hammer to the heart.It really cuts deep.And after wallowing in self-doubt and pity
for some amount of time, you realize that you are going to be ok because that
friend or significant other has a petty and sad life.And these people, you are better off without
them because you do not need the drama or mean-spiritedness they bring.It is as if by causing such strife and hurt,
they feel their self-worth and importance increasing in their small minds.

Other relationships (ex: those at work) can be just as
volatile and when disputes really heat up and come to a head, it can feel like
a volcano exploding.Hurtful (but
truthful) words spew like volcano ash and then rush down, cascading, like lava
and things are altered; the scenery is different.But when one bursts forth their long pent up
frustration on those who caused such feelings of anger and disgust, the nature
of the relationship(s) may only change temporarily.Nothing gets truly fixed.Nothing gets better – at least not
permanently.There is no real revolution
or transformation.Those who feel
tremendous amounts of self-importance will return to their cycle of abuse, unearned
authority and uncaring ways.

Why do some people change for the worse?Why do the others seem to suffer the most at malevolent
people’s arrogance, humiliating decisions, foolishness and lies?When does karma ‘beat up’ those who caused
such misery and heartache and pain?I
know it is wrong to wish ill on those who’ve harmed us, but we can’t help
feeling just a little happy and smug when it does happen.But those at the wrong end of meanness should
find ways to make themselves soulfully happy in a healthy manner, learn to love
themselves and remember that living a life one is proud of is a success and
sweet revenge.

Ok, now that I have put my thoughts and feelings on paper, I
feel much better and lighter.Thanks for
reading!

Saturday, October 26, 2013

A few Saturdays ago, hubby and I went down to visit our families. Since our families live so close, he usually drops me off at my family's house and he goes on to visit with his. On this particular day, my goal was to play more with my 6yo niece Morgan. Normally when I am down there, we usually do not have much time to play together as we are visiting with other relatives or riding horses. So most of my time down there that day would be spent with her. We both got so much joy from it!

For that Saturday, I decided we were going to make rainbow cake and flowers. Unfortunately I do not have the links anymore were I found these ideas on the internet. But as they are really easy and I have several pics, you may not need the websites if you want to make these.

So here we go....

Getting ready to make the cake
It is a box of white cake mix -

the easy kind where you add only 3 ingredients,

which makes it wonderful when baking with a 6yo. haha! ;-)

Mixing and mixing

Morgan really enjoyed this part. I divided the batter (unevenly)
in 8 ziplock bags (you can do fewer) then add in your food coloring.
She "smashed" the bags to really mix in the coloring with the batter.

For this, she took one pan and I took the other. To make -

you cut a small hole in the corner of the bags; start with your first color

and squeeze into the middle of the pan; it will spread out. Then do the same

with the remaining colors - one color on top of the other.

Then pop the pans in the oven following the cake box directions.

Morgan's pan is on the right.

As you can see, Morgan decided to be more artsy and abstract when putting

in her 4 bags of colored batter. She decided against 'staying within the lines'

and followed her creative passions and tendencies.

The finished piece (with one slice missing)!

Our very cool, colorful and tasty cake with strawberry icing!!!

Everyone liked it. :-)

Now onto the flowers. Take toilet paper rolls, fringe both ends

(cut into strips for 'petal's), bend them all outward. Paint, paint, paint.

Painting is the fun part because who doesn't want colorful hands? ;-)

If you can see, Morgan decided to make a big flower with a

paper towel roll. So after painting the roll, stuff the inside with

matching (or not!) tissue paper, then stick a painted wooden skewer

in it for the stem. We did not have time to make leaves, but they

would make a nice touch.﻿

This is the flower I made. Sorry it is not standing up.

I wish I had a few more pics of this whole process and of

Morgan's colorful flowers but my hands were too covered in paint

to go anywhere near the camera once I got started.

So there you have it - a couple of fun ideas for kids who love baking and crafting. And also a great way to spend an afternoon with my funny, energetic, imaginative, cool, sweet and awesome niece!!

And today's pun courtesy of the interwebs -

John Deere's manure spreader is the only equipment the company won't stand behind.﻿

Monday, September 9, 2013

This past Saturday (9/7/13) I experienced my latest Freedom
Opportunity – SKYDIVIIIING!!!It was amazing, incredible, super fun and I want to do it
again!!I went with friends Lizzy and
Marcia and had a blast!We used the
company Skydive Georgia up near Cedartown.When the reservations were made, we were told to arrive at 7:30a, which
means we all had to get up at 5a to leave at 6a.What an early start to the day, but I had
little trouble waking up!;-)

So
we arrived a little early and had expected to wait 2-4 hours before our time to
board the plane.Lo and behold, we were
harnessed up about 8:30a and somewhere a little after 9a, it was time to board
the plane!Lizzy, Marcia and I were
jumping tandem, and the professional skydiver assigned to me was Johan; he was really
cool, nice and reassuring.Thankfully he
had several thousand jumps under his belt; also he had skydived in several
countries, including Africa - landing near a herd of elephants!L, M and I bought a video package in which we
also had another person assigned to us to video our jump and do mini before and
after interviews; with this we also got still photos.My videographer was Sarah and she was cool
too.

The
people running the company were really good and let the three of us be apart of the same group of jumpers.When you buy
the tickets, your automatic jump height is just over 10,000 feet; but when the
weather is cooperative and nice, you can opt to go to 14,000 feet – 2.67
miles!!The weather was perfect
that day.We all decided to go big or go
home; so we went the 14,000 feet!This gave
us nearly a minute of freefall time before the parachute opened for a ride down
of about 5-7 minutes.

On
the ride up to altitude, I was calm – really looking forward to it.When it was my time to dive, I did have a
brief moment of nervousness, but thankfully I did not have any feeling of
wanting to turn back.I knew it would be
thrilling.So with wonderful Johan doing
all the work, we JUMPED!Man, the wind
hitting my face at 120 miles an hour was incredibly hard, and I just had to
remind myself to breathe during the first 10-15 seconds.My brain wanted to stop working during
freefall.When Johan pulled the cords
for the parachute to open, it was violent and unexpected jerk.The time when we were soaring was phenomenal!!Everything on the ground was so small.While coming down, Johan asked if I wanted to
do some spins, and I said as long as they were gentle.We did several turns and it was magnificent!Definitely one of the coolest things I have
ever done.One thing I was worried about
was the landing and as it turned out, I did not have to worry at all.Johan did a fantastic job of making the
landing gentle and easy.Wow what a rush
that all was!!I have to experience
tandem skydiving at least one more time. JThe first time was such a sensory overload
for me, I feel that I was unable to fully appreciate the sheer awesomeness of
what I did.Such euphoria!!

Here
are pics from me and the videographer (warning there are many pics!)

Friday, September 6, 2013

If any of you
recall, in June, hubby, friends and I went to the Turks and Caicos for a
fabulous vacation, and on our last day there I learned how to snorkel.I was immensely terrified of doing it, but
had so much nervous excitement, I took the plunge and loved it.As I said in that post, snorkeling opened up
a new world to me because it gave me a new sense of freedom.

After learning of this ‘new sense of freedom,’ two of my
friends became inspired by this.So now
among our friends, we look for Freedom Opportunities. Because of this, my brilliant friend Brittany
decided that Freedom Opportunity needed to be defined.So she, lovely friend Lizzy and I had a long
discussion about what the definition of a Freedom Opportunity should be; I will
admit that most of the discussing occurred between them.I really only came in and added maybe 1 cent
worth of opinion.We knew we did not
want the definition to have a negative vibe or be too vague and
superficial.So among the three of us,
we settled on what we all feel and believe is a great definition that gives true
attention to developing oneself and has some real depth to it.*The definition will be at the end of this
post.*

There are many and various opportunities to experience a
Freedom Opportunity. Here are some things my friends have done recently.

Earlier this summer Brittany and Lizzy went to visit a
friend in Chicago and while there they all attended Chicago’s Gay Pride
parade.Brittany said the feeling in the
atmosphere was that of love and acceptance and that her heart overflowed with
happiness for her fellow human beings.During Gay Pride Brittany posted an assortment of pictures and opinions
on Facebook supporting the LGBT community all the while knowing there would be
much backlash from friends and family members with more traditional family
values.This potential backlash did not
cause her to shy away from firmly stating her beliefs.Brittany’s Freedom Opportunity came in the
form attending a parade where she could show her unbiased love and full
acceptance for all people and their respective lifestyles, her continued
support of the LGBT community and ultimately, her proudly and resolutely
standing up for her beliefs at the risk of angering others.

The day that we defined Freedom Opportunity was the day
Lizzy decided pursue some personal growth in the form of learning another
language.She recognized that there may
be times and situations in her life now, and most likely in the future as well,
where knowing another language could be of immense help in dealing with some people
in various situations.Being limited to
one language is just being limited.Knowing another language opens up the door to understand different
cultures and values, and could make a person feel empowered and confident.

Marvelous friend Megan and her husband learned how to
mechanic their hybrid car a little bit.The main battery in the car died, and they thought of taking it to an
actual mechanic, but with mechanic and parts prices these days, well that
estimate was certainly unreasonable.So
Megan and her husband decided to learn how to fix the problem themselves – so
bring on Google for a search in how to recharge the hybrid car batteries.After finding a particularly helpful
instruction book, they set about recharging the battery.Megan explained the process to me, but as my
memory for how mechanical technicalities work is not so good, I am not going to
attempt to explain it here.But the
point is they did not let this difficulty stump them, and they overcame a
challenge.Learning more about your car,
its various parts and how to make it run properly is a remarkably helpful skill
set to have, and now Megan and her husband have had a Freedom Opportunity.

I am going to have an astonishing Freedom Opportunity
tomorrow (Sept 7th), but I do not want to write about it here or
even barely mention what I will be doing.Suffice it to say, it will be so magnificent that it will deserve its
own post!

Something to keep in mind about a Freedom Opportunity –Do
not be a false opportunist.Brittany was
talking with a friend who thought a Freedom Opportunity could justify him
smoking occasionally when not drinking.No; thoughts similar to this and their subsequent actions are not the
point of a Freedom Opportunity.Freedom
Opportunities are for you to being open to experiences and adventures which
will make you a better you.Freedom Opportunities
are supposed to be good for the soul, make you a better, stronger, happier you.

Don't just stand there - go chase your dreams, change
careers or companies, move to a new city/state/country, start a business that
you are passionate about, join or establish a club, try your hand at learning to
play an instrument, stand up for your beliefs, take college courses that do not
result in a degree, learn home and car repairs or anything else that will make
you joyful, empowered and/or enlightened.Do not not try things out of fear or idleness or difficulty, as we all
have one ride on this merry-go-round of life.Have fun, challenge yourself and be empowered and encouraged!

And now for the definition for a Freedom Opportunity as I
am sure you are twitching in your seats for it -

A
freedom opportunity encourages one to conquer fears, overcome stagnancy, rise
above challenges, pursue personal growth, and lets one delight in a whole new
world.

Thank you Lizzy and Brittany for deciding that seeking Freedom
Opportunities needed to be a trend/movement. Thank you Megan for believing this
needed to be posted.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Before moving to the city, I lived in the country.I rode horses, helped work cattle, competed
in rodeos, cleaned out the barn and all sorts of other farm related
activities.I was constantly on
horses.After moving to the city in
2007, my time of riding was cut down drastically.I mean to nil.On rare occasions, I would get on a horse at
my parents for about 5 minutes and be done.But a couple of Saturdays ago, I went down there with the primary reason
to ride.Luckily my lovely and generous sister
Amy let me ride her horse Obie, since I have not had a horse of my own in about
6 years.And I must say, I did not
forget how to ride!!Yay!Got on the horse correctly, did not fall off,
sat correctly when loping and remembered how to barrel race the right way.I rode 30+ minutes and had so much fun.My parents and 6 yo niece Morgan rode their
horses too.It felt like old times –
which translates into fun and wonderful times with family.

Here are a couple of pics of my parents, my niece and I
on our horses.Mama’s horse is named
Bucket, my dad’s is Shinbone and Morgan’s is Monkey.*My dad has always had a penchant for naming
horses and dogs unusual names.;-)

Also, yesterday (7/6/13) I was able to spend quality time with Amy
and Morgan – though not enough quality for any of us, it was still great to hang
out with them!JThey came to Atlanta from a small country town and
according to Morgan the drive up was not good because of all the traffic here.Haha!We went to lunch, shopping and then came back to my place so we could go
swimming.Of course with all of the rain
we have had these past few days, the swimming only lasted 5 minutes.To go to lunch and shopping, we took my car –
my awesome and fast Mustang.It is
definitely not a mom car.Since Morgan
is still required to ride in a child’s seat in vehicles, it looked completely
out of place in my car – kind of threw off my car’s ‘cool’ character.But she did have fun riding in it and loved
the sound of my engine as much as I do.The fact that she wanted to hear the engine be loud as much as I do was
pretty dang amazing and funny. (Side note - I told Amy when she
was pregnant with Morgan that Morgan was going to take after me to some extent.Her liking my car’s engine and other factors over
the past 6 years have proved my prediction to be true.Hehe!)
Oh, Morgan was so excited about coming up to see me, she woke up at 5am
that morning.Amy did not plan on
leaving their house until 9:30a.It is
nice to be loved and wanted!J

Thursday, July 4, 2013

1)People
walking/jogging/driving by themselves and using their ipod or smart phone with both earbuds in really confound me.I cannot believe that many adults do not
think about their personal safety and do not want to be fully aware of things
going on around them.How is that adults
do not give any consideration to safety and awareness?If exercising outside, do you not want to
hear people and cars coming up behind you?If driving, do you not want to be able to hear emergency vehicle sirens
so you will know to pull over to the side of the road? Why do adults not use
their common sense and use only one earbud when doing any of these activities
solo?I have a hard time fathoming how
people can take such a possible gamble with their safety at times.I am grateful that my hubby does have concern
for his wellbeing and uses common sense and only uses one earbud for his ipod when he walks alone.

2)I saw a guy walking down the sidewalk today barefooted.Eww eww eww.So gross.I looked to see if
maybe he was carrying some kind of shoes.But nope, his hands were empty.So I theorized that he really hates his feet and hopes to cut one foot or the other and give himself gangrene.

3)Our 3.5 year old fairly active dog is becoming
lazy and possibly even more worthless than normal.It was confirmed today that he prefers the
elevator to the stairs in our building – he stopped in front of the elevator
when I was trying to walk him to the stairs.Has the ‘lazy and inactive American’ syndrome infected my dog? He’d rather take the elevator about 60% of the
time when going in/out of the building.4)So I heard Chris Brown’s latest song – Fine
China - and these lyrics were part of the chorus:

Line 1 – he’s LYING.He is dangerous. Does he feel guilty about
singing that line?

Line 2 – Yeah, he’ll be generous alright.Generous with his fists and rages

Line 3 – He does not treat his real life women like they are
irreplaceable.And I am sure once he is done with them, they are glad to be gone.Line 4 – More like broken china.That makes it trash - not a collectible.

5)Heard
at an Ethiopian restaurant recently “Imagine coming to an Ethiopian restaurant
and getting too much food.”My thought was – could you imagine a native
Ethiopian person coming to the states for the first time and visiting a
restaurant serving foods from his homeland?His eyes would bug out at the amount of food offered in one sitting and
think “what the hell!I had to fly
several thousand miles to get this much food at one time.Ahh man, that ain’t right.”

6)If you
ride a scooter or a motorcycle and are a sitting at a red-light several cars
back and you ride your scooter or motorcycle up the right side of the cars to
get to the front of the line – you are an asshole.Plain and simple.If a person does this on a bicycle, I can
understand their wanting to do this because cyclists do not have an engine.

7)If you
are an instructor for a driving school, and you (the instructor) are driving
the teaching car, I do not believe you should run red lights!!Even when there is not a student in the car,
driving instructors should set good examples for the public in general at all
times, especially when they are driving the teaching car.I mean, from whom do you think we learned to drive???!!!**BTW, actually saw a driving instructor run a red light.**

8)In the past couple of months, one of the roads I
take home from work is a residential road with lots of cars parked on the
street.There is this one car that
wasn’t a Ford Crown Victoria but the equivalent from another car maker.(I know, not very observant.But whatevs.)The one thing that I did notice though was that for a few weeks the back
end of the car was sitting very low.At
first I thought that they just had house things or luggage in the trunk.About 2 weeks go by and the back end is still
quite low.So now I am thinking there
are dead bodies in the trunk – shouldn’t the neighbors be concerned and call
the police.So finally one day the car is gone.I then think that the criminals decided to
finally hide the bodies or the neighbors wised up and at last called the
police.As I drove down that road a few days later,
this Ford-Crown-Vic-look-alike potential crime scene, I mean, car was
back.I guess the car owners decided to
bury the bodies.(I think the car should
be searched.)

Friday, June 21, 2013

So if any of you recall, hubby and I went on a cruise in
February and by the end we were miserable people.Well, on June 9th we left for
vacation to the Turks and Caicos Islands!!!!This vacation was incredible, and we were much happier and satisfied
with our week in TCI.And even better,
this was a trip in which hubby did not have to work like he did on the awful
cruise.

We went to the island of Providenciales of the TCI with a
couple friend of ours and had a blast.Since our flight was at 9a Sunday, hubby and I wanted to be at the
airport about 7:30a, which meant we had to be up no later than 5:30a to get
ready and finish packing.We arrived at
on the island about noon, went to the rented out townhouse, and then walked
around the town of Grace Bay.Anyway
after eating an early dinner and having a couple of drinks, we were in bed
around 8:30p.What a long day.

Monday and Tuesday were spent on the fabulous beach. (Per our normal selves we
had a large bag of stuff and a cooler full of beer.We cannot go anywhere without taking a crap
load of stuff that is ‘necessary.’) The
beach was beautiful and fairly empty.The water was gorgeous and clear and a few shades of blue.It was dream like.I was incredibly happy to see water like that
with my own eyes.I had seen that kind
of water on tv shows and in magazines, but I just could not bring myself to
fully believe that marvelous water was in fact a reality.Marvelous!Wednesday we spent the day at the pool of the townhouse.There I practiced swimming (am a real
beginner) and learned to float with patient hubby’s help.

So Thursday, I was able to do another thing I had been
dreaming of for years.And that was to
RIDE A HORSE ON THE BEACH!!!Hubby, our
friends and I had a great time.The
other wife and I were really excited to ride horses on the beach and in the
ocean; the husbands were not thrilled at all.But they were nice husbands and did it with us girls because they knew
how happy this would make us. (Thus in turn making their lives happier.Ha!)Hubby was assigned a Belgian horse – think the size of Budweiser
horses.He said he felt like a Viking up
there and all he needed was sword and shield.Haha!It was about a 10-15 minute
walk from the stables to the ocean, and we rode in the water for about 30
minutes.My horse wanted to swim but I
was a little nervous about going out far enough for him to swim because he was
a shorty.After that thrilling adventure,
we came back home and got ready for the beach again. We were in the water so long we pruned.This time hubby and I stayed long enough to
watch the sunset.It was quite pretty,
but if there had been no clouds, I am sure it would have been stunning.

Friday, we had another amazing adventure and this time
the husbands were really delighted about it.It
was a half day sail and snorkel tour on a sailing vessel.And they happily served up ‘happy juice’ –
aka rum punch.On this tour, the boat
captain took us to two spots.One place
for snorkeling was on a reef and the shallowest part of that area was about
15-20 feet.I was going to stay on board
and get in the water at the next spot.The captain and assistant captain (or whatever 2nd in command
is called) convinced me to get in the water. They were extremely
helpful and patient.I was given the
orange ring used save people and a noodle to use since I am a beginner swimmer
and really panic when my feet can’t touch the bottom.I was so frightened and nervous.But I did it.I went over board and began to learn how to SNORKEL!!!I was extremely thrilled and proud of
myself.That time I was in the water
maybe 10 minutes and that was all I could handle.But I did get to see a few things once I
convinced myself to put my head in the water. At the next stop, which was at a beach, I
swam and snorkeled even more and felt much more comfortable in the water and
putting my head in it.I truly loved my
new found sense of freedom.It was
exhilarating!I am already ready for my
next snorkeling adventure.

We came home Saturday and it was nice to be back
home.But, HOORAY for happy and
wonderful vacations!!!:-D

About Me

I am happily married and work full-time in the personal lines insurance industry. Hubby and I eloped to Las Vegas in May 2009 and then became dog parents in January 2010. Dog takes up quite a bit of time but he is goofy and so much fun.

My early years were made of riding horses and competing in various events in rodeos. That was a great way to grow up. Hubby and I moved to Atlanta in 2007. I really enjoyed living in the city and all of the exciting things you can do here; then we moved in 2014 to NC and now live in the out in country. Quite a different pace of life to say the least!